Order My Books

Good news! You can buy my newest book and a quirky older favorite by clicking here.

You can buy them anywhere, but the only way to be sure you buy one with my autograph is by buying here. Let me know how you want me to sign it.

One of the books is the newly-published second edition of my popular 2014 book, The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch. The other is my 2016 book, The Colorful Characters of St. Louis.

Here’s details about both:

The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition

With his fourth book from Reedy Press, The Making of an Icon, Jim Merkel captured the spirit behind the conception and construction of one of America’s most distinctive and beloved national monuments. More than two million visitors stand in awe at the Gateway Arch each year, and the stories behind it were unearthed in breathless detail in the first edition. Back with even more lore and the addition of beautiful color images, Merkel brings new information on the Arch grounds and museum to this updated and revised second edition. Now expanded, his book includes more stories compiled from interviews with the visionaries, finaglers, protesters, and intrepid workers who built the arch while one misstep away from a fatal fall. Merkel’s book will help us appreciate the relentless pursuit, innovation, and toil that raised the Arch to the sky.

$24.00, including sales tax

The Colorful Characters of St. Louis

To sell more furniture for Schweig Engel, Mike Stein made crazy TV commercials. To protest racial inequality in the construction of the Gateway Arch, Percy Green and a friend climbed a ladder 125 feet up the side of the unfinished monument. When a German immigrant bought a local baseball team, he used a scantily clad band and a Wild West Show to draw fans. Welcome to a world of mavericks, outcasts, innovators, eccentrics, and other unforgettables who defy convention.